


when the sun goes low

by zach_stone



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Getting Together, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-IT (2017), Post-IT Chapter Two (2019)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:07:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24901297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zach_stone/pseuds/zach_stone
Summary: As he sits with Bill now, the sun starting its long, sluggish descent toward the horizon, Mike looks at his friend and thinks with a burning intensity,I think I’ll miss you most of all.And maybe Bill reads his mind, because he reaches over to touch Mike’s hand, a barely-there grazing of skin, and says in the quietest voice, “I’m really going to miss you, Mikey.”“You’ll see me again,” Mike promises, ignoring the sudden stinging behind his eyes. “Just gotta wait a couple decades.”--Or, Mike and Bill take three tries to get their timing right.
Relationships: Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon
Comments: 28
Kudos: 142





	when the sun goes low

**Author's Note:**

> did somebody say bike night?? this is my first time writing bill/mike, and my first time writing mike pov, so i hope i've done him justice. only things of note really are that 1) i decided to keep mike's parents alive like they are in the book, because mike deserves to have his family, and 2) this is an everyone lives au. u can decide how that all worked out. 
> 
> thank u to fox for giving this his "this is in character" stamp of approval and a huge fucking thank u to lex for helping me work out the details of this fic and making mike's thought process coherent. ur my heroes. 
> 
> title is from "drive" by glades.

**1993**

Summer days in Derry stretch out long, the sun hanging in the sky with a bone-bleaching heat for almost fifteen hours at a time. The grass out by the quarry gets tall and bends underfoot when kids run through it, and on the Hanlon family farm, Mike finds any excuse to be outside that he can. It’s been this way since he was a little kid, eager to follow his dad around the farm. He’s not so little anymore, he’ll be eighteen next year, but sometimes he feels like he’s the only thing that’s changed — the farm, his family, this  _ town,  _ it’s all the same as it’s always been as long as he can remember. 

It’s another of those long, long days in July when Bill comes around the Hanlon farm on his bike. Mike’s reading on the porch, the sun a little lower in the sky now that it’s past dinner time but still a couple hours away from dark, and he looks up at the familiar  _ tk-tk-tk  _ sound of the playing cards clothespinned to the tires of Silver. Bill’s grown into his too-big bike now, but it never  _ seemed  _ too big for him, even when they were four years younger. Bill’s always had that way about him. 

Bill comes to a stop at the foot of the porch, one leg on the ground and the other still resting on the pedal. He’s sunburned across the bridge of his nose and tanned on his arms and legs like he always gets in the summer. He smiles at Mike, his eyes squinting a little in the sun.

“Hey,” Mike says, sticking his finger in his book to mark his place. 

“Hi,” Bill says. “You already have dinner?” Mike nods. “Do you wanna come for a ride with me?”

“Yeah, sure.” He sets his book down on the porch and opens the screen door, poking his head inside. “I’m going for a bike ride with the guys!”

“Be back before dark!” his mother calls from the living room.

“I will, Ma,” Mike replies. He shuts the door and turns back to Bill. “Let me just grab my bike.” 

He goes around to the side of the house, where he keeps his bike. It’s not the same one he rode  _ that _ summer, the one where everything changed, because he’s long since outgrown it. It’s the same kind, though, the same metal basket like the one he’d carried Eddie in as they rode away from a living nightmare. 

He wheels it around to the front of the house, where Bill is still waiting. “Are we meeting up with the others?” Mike asks.

Bill shakes his head. “I thought maybe it could be just us.” He peers at Mike almost nervously, a rare thing for Bill to be. “Is that okay?”

“Yeah,” Mike says. He feels warm, like when he accidentally falls asleep in the sun when the Losers hang out at the quarry. Bill smiles at him, and Mike smiles back, and they ride off side-by-side. Bill stands up on his pedals, and Mike watches him from the corner of his eye. The way his elbows lock as he leans over the handlebars, his eyes narrowed slightly against the early evening light, washing him in orange. Mike thinks that Bill looks lovely and strong like this, and it pulls at something in his chest. He flicks his eyes forward again before his bike starts to swerve off course. 

They don’t discuss a destination, but they end up riding all the way up to the cliff over the quarry. It’s a good place to watch the sunset, and it’s almost always deserted. They let their bikes fall to the dirt and walk to the edge, dropping down to sit with their legs dangling over. Bill leans back on his hands, staring off into the distance, and Mike watches him.

After a while, Bill says, “You know I’m leaving in two days.”

“Yeah,” Mike says. He follows Bill’s gaze, looking at nothing in particular. “I know. We’re having your goodbye party tomorrow.”

“I don’t…” Bill starts, and then stops, breathing out harshly. “I don’t want to forget. Like Bev and E-Eddie and — and Stan.” He swallows roughly. Bill so rarely stutters anymore, it almost takes Mike by surprise when he does. “I’m gonna leave and then I’m gonna forget everyone. It s-s-sucks!” 

They know by now that that’s how it works, when you leave — first, with Bev, they thought maybe she’d just wanted to put it all behind her. She’d only known them for a summer, after all. With Stan, it had been harder to explain away, and when Eddie stopped calling and writing everyone, even Richie, they understood. 

“Maybe this is just how it has to be,” Mike says. “This is how it has to end.”

“That’s bullshit,” Bill says angrily. “We go through  _ hell  _ and then we all just l-l-leave and never see each other again? It’s not fair.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Mike says slowly. “I think we will see each other again.” He looks over at Bill again, who is watching him with glassy eyes and a frown. “In about twenty years or so. When it’s the right time.” 

Bill lets out a slow breath. “You think It’s going to come back.”

“So do you,” Mike says. “That’s why you made us promise.” He holds up his hand, palm facing Bill. The scar is a few years old now, but still clearly visible. 

Bill scoffs quietly. “I made you guys do a lot of sss-stupid shit that summer.”

“I think that was the smartest thing you had us do,” Mike says honestly.

Bill smiles faintly. He scoops up a rock and tosses it down into the quarry, where the water ripples out. “You really think we’ll all come back?” he asks. 

“Yeah,” Mike says. “I think we’ll have to.” 

He doesn’t say what he’s been thinking since Eddie left a year ago — that eventually, all of them will leave, and if they all leave, no one will remember. Someone will have to stay, and Mike has already decided that it will be him. He knows Bill would insist it shouldn’t be Mike who stays — would try to stay in his place instead, as if he could force his family not to move. But Mike feels with a certainty in his bones, the same certainty he felt when he saw the Losers across the creek during the apocalyptic rock fight and knew  _ these are my friends, we were meant to find each other now,  _ that he has to be the one who stays. The one who keeps watch, who brings the others home.

As he sits with Bill now, the sun starting its long, sluggish descent toward the horizon, Mike looks at his friend and thinks with a burning intensity,  _ I think I’ll miss you most of all. _

And maybe Bill reads his mind, because he reaches over to touch Mike’s hand, a barely-there grazing of skin, and says in the quietest voice, “I’m really going to miss you, Mikey.” 

“You’ll see me again,” Mike promises, ignoring the sudden stinging behind his eyes. “Just gotta wait a couple decades.” 

“Wonder what we’ll be like then,” Bill says. “All of us. All grown up. If… if things will be the same.”

“You sound like Stan,” Mike says, and Bill huffs a laugh. “We’ll probably change, but the important stuff… that’ll be the same.” 

They sit there in silence for a while, watching the reflection of the sunset in the water. The hum of frogs and cicadas fills the evening air. Mike taps his feet against the rough edge of the cliff. He is very aware of how close he and Bill are, the sun-warm heat radiating off Bill’s bare arm barely grazing Mike’s own. Summer evenings in Maine last a long time, but Mike finds himself wishing that this one could last forever. He wants to live in this moment, in the golden hour light, in this precious bubble of space where there is no primordial evil in the depths beneath their town and no day after tomorrow where the Denbroughs drive away to Pennsylvania and forget. He just wants to stay here a little longer, while he can. 

Maybe it’s because he’s so caught up in his own head, but Mike doesn’t expect it when Bill leans in. He kisses Mike on the cheek, a brief, dry press of lips. It only lasts a moment. Mike’s breath catches. He turns his head, his nose bumping against Bill’s in the moment he pulls away. 

“What was that for?” Mike asks.

Bill shrugs, ducking his head. The tips of his ears are red. “The important stuff,” he says. 

“Bill…” Mike says. He opens and closes his mouth a few times. He presses his hands against the ground until he can feel the grit of it in his palms. “You’re moving in two days,” he says helplessly.

“I know,” Bill says. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t, just — why  _ now?”  _

“Because I won’t get another chance for twenty-something years,” Bill says, smiling sadly.

Mike laughs humorlessly. He guesses he can’t argue with that. He wants to say that it isn’t fair for Bill to give him this and then leave and forget it ever happened, while Mike will have to carry the memory alone for the next twenty-three years. But he can’t say that, because he can’t admit to Bill that he’s staying. 

“I should get going, it’ll be dark soon,” Mike says. He pushes up off the ground, wiping the dirt from his hands onto his jeans. 

“Mike,” Bill says, and there’s an urgency to his voice, something desperate, and Mike turns to face him. Bill’s stood up now, too, and he’s clenching his fists at his sides, trembling a little with it. Mike wonders suddenly if Bill is about to tell him he loves him. He finds himself hoping that he won’t, because it won’t change anything: Bill still has to leave, and Mike still has to stay. 

“What?” Mike asks hoarsely. 

“Just…” Bill shakes his head. The sun glints off the red in his hair. He’s backlit, limned with gold. “I’ll see you tomorrow?” he asks finally.

Mike nods. “Yeah. Of course.” 

“Okay. Good night.” 

“Good night, Bill.” He picks up his bike and swings his leg over it, pedaling off back down toward town, and he feels Bill watching him until he rounds the bend and is out of sight. 

**2016**

After the second longest night of Mike’s life, he’s surprisingly awake, sitting in the lobby of the townhouse as everyone else starts to trail off to their rooms, one by one — Stan first, Eddie next with Richie following too quickly after to be anything but obvious, Ben and Bev after that. 

When Bill stands up, Mike expects him to head for the stairs as well, but instead he just stretches his arms over his head and says, “I’m way too f-fucking wired to sleep. I’m gonna go for a drive. You want to come?”

Mike is still buzzing with leftover adrenaline and the shock to his system from swimming in too-cold quarry water earlier, so he nods. They walk to Bill’s car together, Mike settling into the passenger seat. Neither of them say much as Bill pulls out of the parking lot and drives down the street, but it’s a comfortable kind of silence. It’s been a long time since Mike got to share this kind of quiet with someone else — dozens of memories bounce around in his mind, of long afternoons in the clubhouse or in the grassy yard outside Mike’s place, the Denbroughs’ back patio, moments like this he shared with Bill through the four summers they had together. 

Bill drives slow, peering out the windshield with a contemplative look on his face. Taking it all in again, the streets of Derry and the people, some of whom didn’t live here when Bill did last but most of whom have been here longer than that. It’s a bright, warm August afternoon, and Mike rolls down the passenger side window so he can rest his elbow out in the open air, feeling the slight breeze over his face. He can sense that Bill keeps looking over at him, and he smiles a little bit despite himself. It feels different, trying to see the town through Bill’s eyes instead of his own. To see it as a memory, instead of the cage it’s been for all these years. With some surprise, Mike realizes that it  _ will  _ be just a memory for him soon, if he wants it to be. It still hasn’t fully sunk in, that it’s over. That he gets to leave now, have a life outside of this.

Mike half-expects Bill to drive them back over to the quarry, but instead they pull up to the lookout point on the outskirts of town, one of the few places that the Losers rarely went as kids because it was so often populated. It was once a hotspot for the teens who were lucky enough to have cars, where they’d drive up in the evenings and make out in backseats and truck beds. It’s lost some of its charm in recent years and sunset is still a few hours away, so there aren’t any other cars at the lookout, but the view is nice. The sky is warm and blue, the sun low amidst the few wispy clouds.

Bill kills the ignition and sits for a moment before unbuckling his seatbelt. “C’mon,” he says, nodding his head, and gets out of the car. Mike follows suit, rounding to the front of the car to join Bill in sitting on the hood. They take in the view. Maybe it’s just his imagination, but Mike thinks even the air feels different today, the first morning in Derry without evil lurking below the surface. He wonders if everyone in the town woke up today feeling the difference, or if they’ll continue unaware of how everything has changed.

“You’re quiet,” Bill says, sounding vaguely amused.

Mike glances at him, raising his eyebrows. “Am I?”

“Yeah. Quietest you’ve been since we all g-got here.”

He’s not wrong. Mike shrugs slightly. The manic sense of urgency he’s had since he made the phone calls to bring his friends home is finally petering out. Without any frantic plans to be made, he sort of wants to enjoy the quiet for a while. “It’s been a long day,” he says eventually.

“I can’t remember the last time I went this long without sleeping,” Bill says. “I sh-should be exhausted. Just feels like I’ve been asleep for the last two decades and now I’m finally waking up, you know?”

“Yeah,” Mike says. “I can imagine.” 

Bill drums his hands against the hood of the car and makes a contemplative noise. “Do you remember that day right before I moved, when we biked to the quarry together?”

Mike, who’s kept that particular memory close to his chest over all these years, nods. “Sure,” he says carefully. “What about it?”

“I was thinking about what you said, about how the important stuff wouldn’t change. I think you were right. We’re all the same, aren’t we?”

Alright, so it’s not the part of that day that Mike  _ expected _ Bill to lead with, but he’ll go with it. “In a lot of ways, yes,” he says. “You all had to forget so much of your lives, it makes sense that it was hard to develop past that.”

Bill nods, looking lost in thought. “Before I left, I didn’t even think that I would forget Georgie. I wasn’t even worried about it.”

“You forgot him?” Mike asks. He’s wondered, over the years, how the magic over Derry would affect the memory of what happened to Georgie. Would the Denbroughs even remember they’d ever had a younger son? 

“Not completely,” Bill says. “But I forgot what happened to him. I just thought that he got… lost. I barely even thought about him. I should’ve — I never wanted to forget. I didn’t want to forget him, or you, or any of it.” His voice cracks a little, and he clears his throat. Mike reaches out, places his hand over Bill’s. His skin is nearly as warm as the hood of the car under Mike’s palm. Bill side-eyes him and says, “I guess this means you’re the most well-adjusted of all of us, since you remembered everything.”

Mike scoffs. “Are you kidding? I never got to leave, I couldn’t change either. I was just stuck in the same place, worrying about the same things. Turning over the same memories.” 

Bill’s expression is difficult to place — eyes lined with shadows of exhaustion, the slight furrow in his brow. Looking like he’s trying to read Mike’s mind. “Fuck, I’m sorry, Mike. You had to carry it all by yourself. That wasn’t fair.”

Again with the fairness; Bill’s always had such a deep-seated belief that unfairness is something that can always be fixed. Mike admires it as much as he thinks it’s probably naive. “It was never about fair,” he says. “None of what we all went through was fair. Someone had to stay behind, it just happened to be me.”

But Bill is already shaking his head. “You knew, didn’t you? That day. You knew you were going to stay. I wish you’d told me.”

Mike looks off at the horizon. “I knew you’d say that. But it wouldn’t have made a difference either way.”

“I think I would’ve done some things differently if I knew one of us would remember,” Bill says, very quietly. And then he’s leaning close — Mike can feel the soft puff of his breath — and Bill kisses him on the cheek, lingering. Expecting it this time, Mike is quicker to turn his head, but Bill isn’t trying to move away now. Their noses brush, just like the last time, but so do their mouths. Bill’s eyes flutter shut and his hand moves up Mike’s arm, gripping his bicep. 

Mike breathes slow, not moving to break this not-quite-a-kiss but not closing the distance either. “Bill,” he murmurs. 

“I would’ve told you,” Bill says, just as softly. 

“You wouldn’t have,” Mike says, not unkindly. He smiles just a little bit. “It was a different time. We were stupid kids. And it was Derry. It’s still Derry.”

“We’re not kids now.”

“Bill,” Mike says again, and this time he does move, tilting so their foreheads touch, so they’re no longer breathing into each other’s mouths. “You’re married.”

“I…” Bill starts, and then cuts himself off. He opens his eyes. “I know. But —”

“I don’t — I don’t want it to happen like this,” Mike says. Gently, regretfully, he moves Bill’s hand off of his arm. “You’re remembering a lot of things all at once, I know it’s a lot to process. I don’t want this to be something you do just because you’re still reliving everything you forgot.” 

Bill sighs. He leans back so they can look at each other properly. “I get it. I just, back then, Mike, I really think I l—”

Mike puts his hand over Bill’s mouth to stop him from saying anything else. “Don’t, please. Not now. Figure your shit out first, and then we can talk about that.”

Bill huffs out an amused breath against Mike’s fingers. “Alright, alright, I get it. I still have the worst timing.”

“The  _ worst,”  _ Mike agrees seriously, and then they both laugh. It eases some of the worry that’s been tightening Mike’s chest since Bill leaned in. “You know, I wondered if maybe you hadn’t remembered.”

“And here I thought the location was too obvious,” Bill says wryly. 

“Well, I didn’t want to get my hopes up.” He’s joking, sort of, but perhaps a bit too much honesty bleeds through, because Bill’s smile falters. He’s looking at Mike in that way again, like he’s trying to puzzle him out.

“I know you must’ve been lonely,” Bill says. “It won’t be like that anymore, I s-swear. I’m going to make it up to you.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Mike says. It makes him nervous, Bill’s penchant for extremes; nervous that he’s making promises he’ll realize he can’t keep, once the adrenaline wears off. “Seriously, Bill. You came back like you said you would. That’s already enough.”

“It’s not about that,” Bill says. “It’s about  _ you, _ Mike. What about you? What about your shit?”

“I… am going to figure that out too,” Mike says. “Gonna get out of Derry, for starters. Breathe some new air, see some new sky.”

Bill hums. “By yourself?” 

Mike knows what he’s implying — that he doesn’t  _ have  _ to do it alone anymore. But that makes him nervous, too. It’s been a long time being alone. Just because everyone came back, it doesn’t mean it’s going to stay that way. He’s not sure he can trust it just yet. “By myself,” he confirms. “For now. The rest of you got to leave Derry and go off into the world, it’s my turn.”

Bill seems pleased at that. “Well, you deserve it, Mikey.” He bumps his shoulder against Mike’s and nods at the view in front of them. “I gotta say, though, this view’s not half bad. All things considered.” 

The breeze rustles through the trees lining the lookout, pushes the clouds across the sky, raises the hair on Mike’s arms a little bit. He leans into Bill’s shoulder, feeling the reassuring pressure. “Yeah,” he agrees. “I think the company helps.”

He’s not looking at Bill when he says it, but he can tell he’s smiling all the same. 

**2017**

The decision to host the first Losers Club reunion at Richie and Eddie’s house in Los Angeles was made with two things in mind: they lived closest to a beach, and they had multiple guest rooms — a completely unnecessary level of wealth in Mike’s opinion, but he wasn’t going to turn down an opportunity to have all of his friends under one roof again. He thinks they’re all feeling a little clingy, though no one has put it in so many words.

It’s his first time in Los Angeles, though he’s spent most of the past year traveling around the country and seeing as many new places and faces as he can. The summers here are about as different from Derry as you can get — the heat is blistering, coming up in visible waves off the asphalt, and it’s dry as hell. One year during Mike’s childhood, it rained for the entire month of June; LA summers remind you that you’re practically in a desert, all concrete with the sun stark and white in the sky. 

They’re all gathered in Richie and Eddie’s backyard on that hot August evening: Ben and Eddie fussing over the grill while Richie and Bev try to shove each other into the pool and Stan and Patty goad them on from the safety of their lounge chairs. Bill’s standing under the shade of the patio in douchey sunglasses and board shorts, and Mike approaches him with two beers sweating in his hands.

“Want one?” he asks, holding up one of the beers by the neck of the bottle.

“Yeah, thanks.” Bill fumbles to twist off the top, and Mike chuckles. Bill makes a face at him that’s obscured by his sunglasses, and they clink their bottles together. 

“Hard to believe it’s been a year,” Bill says after a moment. “It feels like it was yesterday.”

“I think after almost three decades, a year’s bound to feel like nothing,” Mike points out. 

Bill snorts. “True.” He sips his beer. Mike watches him, the shape of his mouth around the lip of the bottle. In a lot of ways it  _ does  _ feel like no time has passed, but in a lot of other ways it’s been a long year. Three divorces between the seven of them, several moves, houses bought and sold. For Mike, a year of backpacking and traveling, shaking off the remnants of old memories and trying to make better ones. Another year, by and large, spent alone.

“You want to go for a walk?” Mike asks. 

Bill pushes his sunglasses up onto his head. Their beers are still mostly full. Even so, he just shrugs and says, “Yeah, of course,” easy as that.

They set their beers down on the patio table and slip out the side gate. Richie and Eddie live in a nice little neighborhood, secluded and with wide sidewalks, good for early evening walks. Palms trees stretch overhead. The sun is sinking toward the ocean, out of sight past the big houses that line the block. The air smells faintly of barbecue and the salty tang of the water. They can still hear Richie’s playlist faintly from the backyard as they walk down the sidewalk, some obnoxious ’80s ballad that they all still know the words to.

“So how’ve you been, really?” Mike asks.

Bill laughs, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’ve been good. Figuring my shit out.” There’s a faint pinkness to his cheeks, but it could just be a sunburn. 

“That’s good,” Mike says, trying not to smile too obviously. “Me too.”

“Yeah? Any big revelations in your world travels?” Bill asks. He veers slightly as he walks, bumping his side against Mike’s, though whether it’s purposeful or just Bill’s habit of walking into things is anyone’s guess. He sticks close, though, letting their arms brush. 

“Yeah, actually,” Mike says. “It’s like… okay. You know that feeling, the first day of summer vacation when you’re a kid? You walk out the front doors of the school and you’re  _ free  _ and you feel like you could just start running and never stop? That’s what this whole year has felt like. I’ve been running as far from Derry as my feet will carry me.”

Bill looks both fond and amused. “Weren’t you homeschooled?”

“It’s a metaphor, Bill. You call yourself a writer?”

“Maybe that’s why nobody likes my books,” Bill says, grinning.

Mike nudges him. “Hey. I like your books.”

Bill ducks his head, embarrassed, and nudges him back. “Finish your story.”

“Who says there’s more?” Mike says.

“I sensed a ‘but’ coming,” Bill says. 

They’ve circled the entirety of the cul-de-sac and are standing in front of Richie and Eddie’s house again. Mike wants to give this conversation the attention and privacy it deserves, so he eases himself down onto the sidewalk in front of the house, patting the square next to him for Bill to join him. The house casts the ground in enough shadow this late in the day that although it’s still warm to the touch, it’s not burning through the seats of their pants. The clamor of their friends behind them is newly familiar — the voices are different from when they were kids, but the cadence is the same. The laughter hasn’t changed at all.

“I wanted to get out of Derry for so long,” Mike says, resting his hands on his knees. “It was like living in a nightmare. It stopped feeling like home and started feeling like a cage. I was so ready to see the sun for a change.” 

“And you did,” Bill says.

“I did. But — it wasn’t all bad, was it? Derry, I mean. It felt like home once. It  _ was  _ home. And I kept looking for whatever it was that made it feel like that, trying to find it in someplace else, but I don’t think I’m going to find it on my own.” He looks over at Bill and smiles slightly. “I guess that’s been the problem. I thought I wanted to be on my own for a while longer, but I don’t think that’s what I want anymore.”

“You don’t have to be alone,” Bill says. “I could come with you, wherever you feel like going. I can write anywhere. Some travel might do me good. The company helps, right?” 

Mike shifts, turning to face Bill a little bit more, and Bill mirrors the movement. Their legs tip toward each other until their knees touch. Bill looks so earnest, and even after a year (or twenty-three years, depending on how you look at it) of figuring himself out, this part hasn’t changed. Mike feels ready to let himself trust it now, that Bill is sticking around. “Is that what you want?” Mike asks, just to be sure.

“Yeah, it is,” Bill says. Frowning, he adds, “But — I’ve fucked this up more than once. My timing is shit. I’m still not doing it right, am I?”

“Maybe you just need to let someone else take the lead for a change,” Mike says. He can feel the same pull, drawing them ever closer to each other. And this part is familiar, they’ve done this before. Except this time, Mike’s not looking away. This time, Mike’s the one who leans in.

He lifts his hand, resting it along the side of Bill’s neck, his thumb tracing an arc over Bill’s jaw, and he kisses him. His mouth is warm and pliant, and he breathes in through his nose before kissing Mike back, a quiet sort of urgency to it. One of Bill’s hands slides up Mike’s chest, coming to rest at the neck of his shirt, hooking his fingers along the unbuttoned collar. The kiss deepens, and Bill’s sunglasses fall off his head and clatter to the sidewalk. Neither of them notice. It’s a long moment before they part, and Bill tilts up to let their foreheads press together, hard.

“I love you,” Bill says. He’s grinning that same sort of way he had back in the cistern, after they’d killed It — the kind of smile you make when you’ve just done something that felt impossible until the moment after you did it. “Finally got the timing right for that one.” 

Mike chuckles. From the backyard, they can hear a telltale splash that means Bev has successfully wrangled Richie into the pool. Stan’s laughter carries, mixed with Eddie’s indecipherable yelling. In that moment, as different as Los Angeles and Derry are, the evening feels like one of those perfect summer days back in Maine, the ones tinted honey gold in Mike’s memories, the ones he never wanted to end. But this one can end, and it will be alright, because there are countless such days ahead of them. 

“I love you, too,” Mike tells Bill. They linger another few moments, and then get to their feet. Bill grabs his sunglasses and puts them back on his face, which makes Mike laugh and sling his arm around Bill’s shoulders. They walk back into the yard, where the comforting chaos of their friends is waiting for them, and the sunset makes a fire of the sky.

**Author's Note:**

> thank u for reading! leave me a comment if u so desire and find me on twitter @hermanngottiieb :)


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